Advance Healthcare NetworkConsider a scenario that is all too familiar: You arrive for your regular shift in the medical intensive care unit (MICU). One of your patients is a previously healthy, 45-year-old female who is a mother of two. She came to the hospital via the emergency room the previous morning, with a high fever, low blood pressure, low urine output and back pain. The patient was found to have a kidney stone on a CT scan and was started on antibiotics and given intravenous fluids. READ MORE

On Jan. 6-7, 2017, ANA\C Board Members met for in-person meeting in Sacramento and voted to continue membership in the Western Multistate Division (WMSD) pilot project, a project counting Arizona, Utah and Idaho state nurses associations led by the Regional WMSD Leader Robin Schaeffer. Furthermore, ANA\C BOD voted and named Marketa Houskova the new ANA\C State Director, effective immediately. As you all know, Marketa was the Government Affairs Director, Senior Policy Analyst and Office Manager. She works very closely with Roxanne Gould, ANA\C lobbyist, on legislative issues and RN Days and will continue to do so. Her duties will now officially include all state and membership programing. Marketa has various degrees and vast experiences in politics, policy & development, administration and nursing and has been with ANA\C for last 3 years. Congratulations to our new State Director!

Term of office is May 8, 2017 – early May 2019
If you are interested in running for office, use the link below to access more information. Submit your completed Consent to Serve/Ballot Statement form by Feb. 21, 2017.

Click here for more information, Board Position Descriptions and Consent to Serve/Ballot Statement Form.

Nurses on Boards Coalition is excited to report that the State Strategy Task Force has identified a designated representative in every state to receive reports on a quarterly basis of those registered in the NOBC database. The intention is that these state leaders will serve as a liaison (in CA it is Mary Dickow, MPA, FAAN) between NOBC and nurses in their respective states to share local board opportunities, resources and other news. For more info please click here.

By Keith Carlson In the early 21st century, nursing remains the vital backbone of the healthcare industry. Simultaneously, nurse practitioners (NPs) are a growing cohort of nurses who are ascending to a central role in the provision of primary care throughout the United States. For those would-be nurse practitioners assessing the potential for a satisfying, well-paying career with projections for significant job growth, the journey ahead is more promising than ever.READ MORE

ForbesThe first U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for a machine learning application to be used in a clinical setting is a big step forward for AI and machine learning in healthcare and industry as a whole.
Arterys's medical imaging platform has been approved to be put into use to help healthcare professionals diagnose heart problems. It uses a self-teaching artificial neural network which has learned from 1,000 cases so far, and will continue to improve its knowledge and understanding of how the heart works with each new case it examines.READ MORE

Medscape (free login required)Clinicians are likely to underestimate harms and overestimate benefits of tests and treatments, according to the results of a review of 48 studies published online in JAMA Internal Medicine.
The review showed that the majority of clinicians correctly estimated harms only 13 percent of the time, and benefits only 11 percent of the time. Previous studies on patient expectations show that they, too, overestimate benefits and underestimate harms of many aspects of their care.READ MORE

HealthDay NewsMany American men are infected with the cancer-causing human papillomavirus (HPV), but unlike women, men are more likely to stay infected throughout their lives, a new study finds.
About 45 percent of U.S. men are infected with the sexually transmitted disease, as are 45 percent of women. Among women, the prevalence of HPV infection drops to about 22 percent as they age, but it remains high among men, said lead researcher Jasmine Han, MD. She is in the division of gynecologic oncology at Womack Army Medical Center, in Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
Although a vaccine against HPV has been available since 2009, coverage remains low. Only about 11 percent of men and 33 percent of women have been vaccinated, Han said.READ MORE

U.S. News & World ReportNurses and other health care workers increasingly face verbal abuse, physical assaults and injuries, often from the patients they're trying to help, according to testimony at a Jan. 10 meeting held by the Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration on Capitol Hill. There, registered nurses called on OSHA to promptly pass regulations to prevent violence and protect employees in hospitals, nursing homes and other health care workplaces nationwide.READ MORE

The Clinical AdvisorA new clinical practice guideline for the pharmacologic treatment of hypertension in adults aged 60 years and older has been published by the American College of Physicians and the American Academy of Family Physicians. The agencies conducted a systematic review of randomized, controlled trials for primary outcomes and observational studies through January 2015. Evaluated outcomes included all-cause mortality, morbidity and mortality related to stroke, major cardiac events, and harms. The agencies used the GRADE (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation) method to evaluate the evidence.READ MORE

Hospitals & Health NetworksOn her first day of work at Florida’s Memorial Hospital Miramar, Grisel Fernandez-Bravo, R.N., was given a hospital ID badge displaying her new title: chief executive officer.
But Fernandez-Bravo felt that something was missing. So she attached a badge buddy that says “Nurse.”
“Someone came up to me and said, ‘You’re CEO now. You have to take that badge buddy off,’ she says. “But I won’t take it off. I’ll always be a nurse first.”READ MORE

News-MedicalChildren with asthma may be more likely to become obese later in childhood or in adolescence, according to new research published online ahead of print in the American Thoracic Society's American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
In "Effects of Childhood Asthma on the Development of Obesity among School-Aged Children," researchers report that young children with asthma were 51 percent more likely to become obese over the next decade as children who did not have asthma. The researchers also found that the use of asthma rescue medications reduced the risk of becoming obese by 43 percent.READ MORE

Nurse.comAt UCLA Health, the electronic health records system has all the bells and whistles it needs to be the useful tool and care diary it’s intended to be, with one major bonus: the patient story is in the spotlight, in large part due to the ingenuity of RN Ellen Pollack and her team.
A patient story in the EHR provides clinicians with important clinical information, such as the patient’s problem list, active care plans, expected discharge date, safe patient handling and mobility information and more.READ MORE